In Real Life
I encountered a friend out last night whom I rarely see/talk to. He asked me if I'd been skating lately or "just hiking." It was an odd question. It left me wondering. Of course I've been skating! But then I realized that those moments on 4 wheels haven't been making it onto Instagram. Who cares? Reality check: My Insta feed is the only way some people know me.
That's fine—but it's weird. Everyone uses Instagram (and all social medias) for different reasons. Me? I'm on there to see cool pictures and laugh. I don't ever post selfies, can't get behind them, will unfollow friends who post too many of ’em. I want to see your world, what you're doing, what you think! I don't follow certain friends that I adore in real life simply cuz they clog the feed with crap I'm not interested in. Likewise I follow total strangers who post dynamic pics that make me feel something. Long story short, Instagram isn't real life.
Obvious: we're crafting stories about our identities and lives with every picture we put up—and the ones we choose not to. Not so obvious: those stories probably aren't very true. Sure, hopefully everyone's living extraordinary lives full of natural beauty and wonder, full of humor, full of friends and happy things going down. Full of hiking! But you can sense just by looking that that's not totally the case. We're all just normal. Buncha normal people living normal lives!
And hey, normal is cool.